


A Study in the Art of Pining

by itsalwaysme (Marfabu)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Smut, bottomlock
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-15
Updated: 2015-06-15
Packaged: 2018-04-04 11:39:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4136067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marfabu/pseuds/itsalwaysme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When John Watson limped into Sherlock's life with a cane and a yearning for battle that would soon be sated, he found himself praying more often than he had in those teenage years of defiance and prepubescent cravings. Church services that he refused to attend became a frequent in his life when he could get himself alone in his bedroom to pray to God through the moans of John's name with a hand around his cock. </p>
<p>But maybe it's not to be; maybe his feelings aren't to be shared. Rather, maybe they should be suppressed after Sherlock finds himself studying the art of pining.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Study in the Art of Pining

Sherlock Holmes is not a religious man by any means. God is a man that he cannot find refuge in and an idea that he finds extraneous. Yes, as a young man he attended church on Sunday with his parents and brother, but only for the formality of it. And, of course, to make his mother happy like the mamma's boy that he is.

 

But when John Watson limped into his life with a cane and a yearning for battle that Sherlock would soon sate, Sherlock found himself praying more often than he had in those teenage years of defiance and prepubescent cravings. Church services that he refused to attend became a frequent in his life when he could get himself alone in his bedroom to pray to God through the moans of John's name with a hand around his cock.

 

So maybe Sherlock wasn't a religious man, but love can change the toughest of hearts. It transformed him into a maniac that craved the touch of a man who refused his homosexuality, therefore pushing him away and into his room to pray again. It's easy to want someone that you can't have, easy to crave them in the darkness of two in the morning when you're shrouded with quiet and a little bit of music to block out your moans, but it's hard to face them the next day when your prayers were heard through paper-thin walls lined with bullet holes because the music was just a decibel too quiet and they were just a little bit too awake.

 

There are signs, they say, that can tell you if someone's in love with you. Sherlock could recite them all in alphabetical order after all of the reading that he'd done; hours of research through trashy blogs created to soothe the minds of love-sick teenagers. He'd researched instead of praying at two in the morning in hopes of hiding the infatuation that he felt for John, giving up private church services to find out how to block the feelings that had to be showing through his eyes when he looked at the army doctor.

 

First, there was the telltale sign of distance. The distance between the two flatmates had been decreasing ever so slightly with every passing day. When John would reach for the coffee pot, Sherlock used to make a point of stepping behind him to reach the mugs above his head, handing one to him and keeping one for his own tea. And, likewise, when Sherlock would be working on an experiment with safety goggles on and a steady head focused on the science before him in the early hours of the morning, John would make a point of standing just a bit too close for comfort as he cooked eggs for a breakfast that he would force Sherlock to eat.

 

So, Sherlock began to make a point to stand away from him when they were collecting evidence for a case. He would focus on standing at least five feet away from John only to find that it kept his heart calmer but heavier as well, leaving him to hope that it would all go away with time. Maybe if he tried hard enough, he'd stop pining for the shorter.

 

Next, people say that you give off little gestures of understanding and contentment when you're in the presence of someone that you love: you push your glasses up your nose when they don't need adjusted, you nod a bit too much to make sure that they don't stop talking, or you bite your lip when they walk in the room. Sherlock was a culprit of excessive name-calling. Maybe it was an odd way to show affection, but it was the only way that he knew how.

 

To end this pining once and for all, he tried to cut out the calling of _idiot_ and _stupid_ from his vocabulary when he was talking to or referring to John. He made a point to stop his sentences short when he wanted to call the other man a name, even if it left his sentence sounding choppy and his mouth feeling heavy and awkward without the usual ending to his sentence.

 

What Sherlock hadn't noticed, however, was that for every step that he took towards not showing his affection towards John, the further a step that John took to showing his affection towards him. It was almost as though the absence of the name-calling and the lack of personal space, John had come to a conclusion that Sherlock was trying to push his feelings away. As a trained doctor, he was aware that this wasn't healthy.

 

John, like Sherlock, had never been a very religious man. But when he lost the presence of the consistency of Sherlock's unrequited love, John caved. He'd pray to whoever might be listening that Sherlock hadn't really stopped loving him, that he'd just suppressed it for now. And he was right.

 

Sherlock hadn't stopped his nightly prayer sessions. Rather, he'd learned how to quiet himself with a spare hand pressed over his mouth and the other one focused on pleasuring himself with sinful scenarios running through his head.

 

So, when John decided to walk into Sherlock's room in hopes of discussing what had plagued his mind for what felt like years but had only been days, he was pleasantly surprised to find Sherlock in the middle of a service with moans withheld by a hand that he wanted to be replaced by his lips. It was a bold move on his part to even walk in the room when he met the other man's gaze but a step even further to move so that the hand pumping his member was now his own.

 

With nothing left to lose and Sherlock keening beneath his touch, John leaned forward to place his lips against the taller mans. He swallowed every moan and every whispered prayer of his name in a kiss that was sloppy and heated, filled with need and passion and the angst of suppressed feelings coming to the surface. It was not soft and it was not gentle in any way as it left them both with swollen lips and saliva-coated chins, but John wouldn't have it any other way.

 

Every moan of his name that came out of Sherlock's mouth while he pumped his cock sounded like a prayer coated with sin. As he kissed along his neck, John listened to the rhythm of the heartbeat inside of the man that tried to suppress what demanded to be felt and thought about how fragile it was and how weak it must be to cave so easily. For a man that claimed to estrange himself from feeling, a man who _prided_ himself on it, he sure did give in to what his heart wanted easily, especially the sins that he pretended he didn't want to commit.

 

But maybe he hadn't perfected his religious practices quite yet. Maybe he'd need a little bit of help on John's part to learn just exactly how a prayer needed to be formed with the sound of one syllable, but he figured that they had all the time in the world to practice and all the time in hell to make it perfect.

 

**Author's Note:**

> If you're feeling lovely and you liked this work, then you can go ahead and leave a kudos! If you're feeling extra special, you could even leave a comment for me to read and reply to (no, seriously, I love all comments that I get.)
> 
> I hope that you enjoyed this fic, as I did spend quite a bit of time on it! If you'd like me to continue it in some way, or if you have any prompts for me to dabble with, feel free to tell me in a comment. Again, all comments are greatly appreciated, no matter what they say. ♥
> 
> Have a good one, friend, and again, thank you for reading.


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